International Journal of Drug Policy 14 (2003) 343–346

Review essay

Learning from history: a review of David Bewley-Taylor’sThe United States and International Drug Control, 1909–1997�

Peter Webster

Auvare, France

Received 9 May 2003; received in revised form 22 May 2003; accepted 23 May 2003

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seenthat they go mad in herds, while they only recover theirsenses slowly, and one by one. (Mackay, 1852)

It is difficult to say whether history or science has been themore ignored in the making and promoting of 20th centurydrug policy. True, both historical and scientific ‘facts’ arefeatured widely in the ongoing drug policy debate. Yet thechoice of which ‘facts’ are used and the case that they ‘prove’is often seen to be determined by the pre-existing political,ethical, and religious convictions of whoever is making theargument.

In the contemporary scene it might appear that the find-ings of science are the more applied to ongoing drug policydebate and formulation. According to prohibitionists—atleast when they are not preaching that drugs are ‘wrong’, the‘scourge of humanity’ and a ‘universal evil’—science is theirmainstay and an inexhaustible well for proving the necessityand effectiveness of prohibitionary policy. Reformers echo asimilar but antithetical line, quoting statistics and think-tankstudies in their argument that prohibition has failed as a so-lution to drug use and therefore must be part of the problem.

As for history, we rarely hear contemporary prohibition-ists quoting those who constructed the very edifice theyworship—luminaries such as Hamilton Wright, BishopBrent, Adolph Lande and Harry Anslinger—nor do prohi-bitionists often attempt to justify present policy through ahistorical examination of how and why the forerunners ofmodern drug policy came into existence. Presumably, anymodern institution would be capable of illustrating its legit-imacy through an examination of its history, evolution, andthe biographies of its establishing figures. But when it comesto prohibition, history reveals a dirty little secret: Prohibition

�The United States and International Drug Control 1909–1997 byDavid Bewley-Taylor. Pinter. London 1999. ISBN 1-85567-610-9.

E-mail address: vignes@wanadoo.fr (P. Webster).

has been brought to us by a remarkably small coterie ofmessianic do-gooders, the remnants of 19th century radicaltemperance movements and other assorted fanaticisms. Andthe history of the establishment of the world prohibitionaryregime shows coercion, bribery, dirty tricks, and imperialistmanoeuvrings were more often than not the methods used,racist-colonialist and culturally-biased attitudes the guidingoutlook of its instigators. History may thus demonstrate thatfor the messianic do-gooder any and all means to an endare justified—no matter what the moral contradiction orcollateral damage—or that their professed deep concern forthe welfare of the human race is a mere cover story for anagenda born of personality traits that might better be treatedthan revered. No wonder then that the history of prohibi-tion and its architects is rarely mentioned by present-daydescendants of the moral entrepreneurs of yesteryear.

The failure of history to support the legitimacy of modern-day drug policy goes back much further, of course, to along series of failed prohibitions commencing with the firstWestern Drug War, that against Native Americans of 500years ago who were treated with the greatest of barbarity bythe Inquisition for their age-old traditions of ‘drug use’. Asfor sufficient condemnatory historical evidence of modernDrug Warriorism, however, we may confine our attentionto prohibition in the 20th century and the small band oftrue believers who foisted prohibition on the entire worldas if it were the long-lost 11th Commandment. Indeed,history reveals not only the dubious intellectual and moralroots of modern prohibition, but also that the fertile groundthat enabled prohibition to become a world-wide fiasco—the extraordinary receptivity of the 20th century westernmindset—also must be understood in a religious and psy-chological context if we are to explain how prohibitionistefforts have made such remarkable progress.

The existence of a modern vacuum of belief in the organ-ised religions—the beliefs that shaped human psychologyfor millennia—combined with the undoubted persistence of

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archaic instinctive necessities that enabled such religion tothrive and propagate over the ages, have resulted in a ‘com-mon modern man’ who in default of, and as a substitutefor the designated demons of the past, is quite obviouslyprepared to believe practically anything at all a devil and‘universal evil’ worthy of crusading against. Formerly, onlythe highest religious authorities were accepted as genuineproclaimers of what was, and what was not the work ofSatan. Today, the merest politician or Ph.D. in politicalscience may lead us off on a well-attended crusade againstultimate evil. History shows that modern man has fallen forthe drug-as-devil paradigm as thoroughly as medieval manwas sucked into his belief in witchcraft (Szasz, 1974).

Dirty little secrets

There is little to criticise in David Bewley-Taylor’s ex-panded and much-developed doctoral thesis,The UnitedStates and International Drug Control, 1909–1997, al-though I suppose that some professional historians mayraise a few points of debate and disagreement. For example,the author’s new views on the role of Harry Anslinger inthe construction of modern prohibition are particularly in-teresting and thus certain to draw some rebuttal from thosehaving already gone on record with differing views. Thenew view seems to clarify and demystify Anslinger’s roleand make of him a figure of lesser power than has beenbelieved by those wanting to see him the primary and influ-ential, single-minded architect of the regime that has led totoday’s drug policy woes. As revealed by Bewley-Taylor,Harry was above all a bureaucrat who, like J. Edgar Hoover,managed through all sorts of tricks and manoeuvres to at-tain his main goal: staying in power far longer than hisaccomplishments would have merited. He was apparentlyoften at odds with the U.S. State Department and other U.S.officials and policies, and thus he now appears far more thepermitted fool than the approved spokesman for the U.S.position over the years. The result is that we now havea far less important scapegoat for the idiocies of modernprohibition, and must attribute them more widely.

As for the book’s mechanical aspects, it is well-referenced,as one would expect of a thesis, and chapter introductionsand conclusions are well-composed and can be effectivelyused as a refresher to the arguments. Yet I did find the earlypart of the story a bit brief for a reader who is new to thetopic: It seems written as a mere introduction and prelude tothe more informative chapters on post-WWII drug controlpolicy. Thus interested readers might also profitably referto other classic histories such as Musto’sThe AmericanDisease to more fully understand drug policy developmentsof the early years of the century. Bewley-Taylor’s narrativereally gets going when telling the details of drug controlin the 1950s and 1960s, and here the story-telling is espe-cially clear and engaging. But I also found the occasionalparagraph somewhat over-written, too densely expressed or

with ambiguous punctuation, and thus tricky to understandat a first reading. And here and there in the book some ma-jor idea or finding is repeated excessively, but these minorfaults of style by no means distract from the far greatercontent that must be praised.

The dirty little secrets about prohibition are well-coveredin this lucid history of 20th centuryInternational DrugControl—a misnomer if ever there were one—and the bookincites one to explore new avenues for understanding ourpresent folly and the great, seemingly insurmountable dif-ficulty in overcoming it. The centrality of fundamentalistmoralism and messianic crusading in the story of prohi-bition is revealed in all its vainglory, and impels one tosee the entire institution of ‘drug control’ as a misguidedreligious phenomenon or even perversion. Such excellenthistory teaches the lesson that drug policy reform effortsshould pay more attention to history than has been the case,for the history we read here seems a far sharper tool forproving the futility, absurdity, and self-defeating nature ofprohibition than the run-of-the-mill scientific research ondrug policy that is so often presented in debate.

Not only should the history of 20th century prohibitiontold here discredit all current reliance and belief in it formany readers, but the story also illustrates the way the USinstalled world prohibition and the UN drug treaties—viathreats, bribes, coercion, back-room meetings and shadytactics—never through informed debate by all parties—andthus de-legitimises those treaties to such an extent that no onetoday should be foolish enough to believe they are up-frontagreements between nations existing for the common goodof all. Bewley-Taylor shows that the UN drug treaties todayserve mostly to infringe the rights of nations to develop theirown approaches to drug policy—approaches that are lesscontaminated with anachronistic moral zealotry and aboveall more effective at reducing the social problems associ-ated with drug use. The Single Convention Treaties appearlike a Faustian bargain signed by all the world’s nations ina moment of ignorant panic, and now we seem in mortalfear even of questioning their legitimacy much less tellingthe Devil where He can get off. Perhaps it is a shame we nolonger have Harry Anslinger to blame as top devil in this af-fair, for blame must now reside now with many who shouldhave known better.

Bewley-Taylor’s three major themes, well-described inthe Introduction, deal with the relationship of U.S. powerand hegemony to the prohibitionist enterprise, the frequentdiscrepancies between the announced goals of internationaldrug control and Washington’s wider foreign policy objec-tives, and interpretations of the reasons for such oscillationof policy. Bewley-Taylor remarks,

Washington has frequently pursued wider foreign policyobjectives that have undermined its own goals for transna-tional drug control—a paradox that continues to charac-terize contemporary U.S. narcotic foreign policy. . . U.S.narcotic diplomacy can ultimately be understood as the

P. Webster / International Journal of Drug Policy 14 (2003) 343–346 345

product of oscillation between two forces. These are, first,American moral idealism and, second, what can be termedpolitical realism: an approach to foreign policy based onrational calculations of power and national interest.

Since the events of 11 September 2001, however, thenature of Washington’s goals and intentions for its rolein the coming century—aspects of U.S. power that havebeen ever-present but largely concealed from those out-side the inner sanctum of U.S. government—reveals thatmuch of what America has been thought to be is a myth.What Bewley-Taylor calls a paradox may have been morea high-level strategy of the National Security State that theUS has become since WWII, the apparent oscillation a mereartefact of an overall covert and constant strategy by the Na-tional Security Honchos in the US’s highly opaque securityapparatus.

That power corrupts is certain, and that the rich and pow-erful in the US must by nature have the same human faultsas the rich and powerful of other times and places, cannotbe doubted. Being born and rising to power in America car-ries no special guarantee that God is on one’s side, despiteoft-heard odes to the contrary. Thus we must suspect that thesupposed moral idealism of the US and its leaders may wellbe a cover story and one of the great myths of the modernage. Just as the new views presented about Harry Anslingermake him appear far more the permitted fool than the guid-ing light, it now seems that American moral idealism hasfor some time now been the ‘permitted nonsense’—trulybelieved by the masses and even most of the politicians andspokesmen for U.S. goodness, of course—helping to obscurethe obvious fact that American power has all along been likeany other. Post 9–11 events are beginning to show Americain another light entirely, and are leading to a re-evaluationof much of what America has done since WW2.

Harry Anslinger, however, was a ‘permitted fool’ notbecause he was too powerful to remove, like Hoover, butbecause the foolishness was perceived as advantageousto those in the inner sanctum of U.S. power. Since thequirky nature of the 20th century western mindset was sosusceptible to the fanaticism of prohibition, far be it forWashington’s powers-that-be to ignore the phenomenonor squelch those who wished to incite it. It was ratherput to use with a vengeance. And so with the ‘permittedfoolishness’ of America’s purported promotion of and over-riding concern for democracy and human rights around theworld, America’s help for the poor and disadvantaged ofthe world. . . , what more effective banner for world dom-ination could exist than such self-proclaimed largesse andheart-felt concern? No matter that the masses still believethe myth in their hearts, nor could they be convinced other-wise even by a protracted history lesson, so strong are theirconvictions. As Nietzsche warned, “convictions are moredangerous enemies of truth than lies”.

Although there is plenty of evidence in Bewley-Taylor’sdocument that incites one down such avenues of informed

speculation, he correctly avoids going into such mattersdirectly, leaving us with only the obvious suspicions aboutthe ‘paradox and oscillation’ of U.S. policy. He does stateclearly that “The fight against drugs is almost certainly be-ing used as a cover to increase U.S. influence in the [LatinAmerican] region and reassert hemispheric hegemony”.But I would go much further, and insist that it is globalhegemony at issue. When Bewley-Taylor writes that

The Department of State’s belief. . . that its internationalsuccesses against the drugs trade ‘confirm the generalsoundness of [our] approach’ affirms that the UnitedStates pursues an international strategy based on prohibi-tion with the same enthusiasm today as it did in the earlydecades of the twentieth century. American officials fol-low the same path as that trodden by Brent, Wright, Porterand Anslinger. A steadfast belief in the moral superiorityand practical effectiveness of U.S. prohibitive policies hasmaintained the momentum of proselytization. This has re-mained so despite abundant historical and contemporaryevidence to show that the policy is ineffectual in dealingwith illegal drug use. References to the drug trade as an‘opportunistic disease that breeds only amidst social andmoral decay’ demonstrate a continuing preoccupationwith morality rather than the concrete socio-economicrealities that often underpin illicit drug use. . . .

. . . I would say that those in the U.S. State Departmentconvinced of prohibition’s worth, or those following in thefootsteps of early prohibitionists or so concerned with themorals of the entire human race, are either ‘permitted fools’or actually ‘encouraged fools’ and that those in the higherstrata of power are the ones doing the permitting and encour-aging in line with an overall and well-calculated, if cynicaland anti-democratic strategy. If, on the contrary, the highestlevels of U.S. power are infested with people of the intel-lectual calibre of the Bishop Brents and Harry Anslingersof this world, we are in a great deal more trouble than evenconspiracy theorists suppose.

Tools of the trade

When such a shamefully large number of top-level sci-entists and physicians can be entrapped in fuzzy thinkingfor support of the prohibitionist folly, we should realise thatscience will continue to be a fickle ally in reforming drugpolicy. History may prove to be a more effective tool, yetreading the history of drug control, we cannot fail to see thereligious nature of the enterprise, and religious conviction isthe kind of thing that sticks in men’s minds long after sci-entific and historical proof of its folly has been established.Most of us are apparently still too immersed in our timesto understand that prohibition fulfils a religious need in itssupporters—far more than a political or regulatory need—and that ‘drug crimes’ are the modern analogue of the here-sies of ages past, prosecuted as a pretext for the gratification

346 P. Webster / International Journal of Drug Policy 14 (2003) 343–346

of political, cultural, and religious hatred. The parallel to theInquisition’s fixations and persecutions could not be moreevident (Szasz, 1974).

The final question we must ask is: if both science andhistory are such weak weapons in the war on prohibition,where shall we turn for assistance?

What must be exposed and attacked is the higher levelcynicism and intellectual corruption which continues to useprohibition as a tool for wider strategies. This will be noeasy task, and history teaches that attacking such a superiorenemy is best done by stealth, and by helping along theself-destructive aspects of such enterprises. Encouraging areligious mania—even one illegitimately promoted by thecorrupt and non-believing popes of Washington—to con-tinue on enthusiastically to its logical conclusions is onetime-honoured way to tackle it, but I might suggest another,and recent events have shown that it is effective. High-level

judicial decisions, such as those by supreme courts of na-tions or by international courts, are in a sense analogous tothe papal edicts or other religious statements of infallible au-thority of ages past, and encouraging the various judiciariesof the nations and world to pass condemnatory judgementon prohibition may well be the most effective pathway toreform. History and science may be brought to bear in thisprocess, but it takes religious techniques, or their modernequivalents, to attack and dispel religious delusion.

References

Mackay, C. (1980).Extraordinary popular delusions & the madness ofcrowds, preface to the edition of 1852. Republished New York: CrownTrade Paperbacks.

Szasz, T. (1974).Ceremonial chemistry: The ritual persecution of drugs,addicts and pushers. Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday.